My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic is a children's animated television series produced by Hasbro Studios in the United States (for scripts) and at DHX Media's studio located in Vancouver (for animation; formerly known as Studio B Productions). The series, based on Hasbro's My Little Pony line of toys and animated works, is intended for girls age two through 11 and considered to be the fourth generation (G4) of the My Little Pony franchise, following earlier lines and television show tie-ins in the 1980s and 1990s. The series premiered on October 10, 2010, on The Hub cable channel. Hasbro selected animator Lauren Faust as the creative director and executive producer for the show. Faust sought to challenge the established nature of the existing My Little Pony line, creating more in-depth characters and adventurous settings. Hasbro selected animator Lauren Faust as the creative director and executive producer for the show. Faust sought to challenge the established nature of the existing My Little Pony line, creating more in-depth characters and adventurous settings, incorporating Hasbro's suggestions for E/I ("educational and informational") content and marketing of the toy line. Faust left the show during the production of the second season, but is credited as a consulting producer. Jayson Thiessen, the show's supervising director, became the showrunner starting with season two. The show follows a studious unicorn pony named Twilight Sparkle as her mentor Princess Celestia guides her to learn about friendship in the town of Ponyville. Twilight becomes close friends with five other ponies: Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie. Each represents a different face of friendship, and Twilight discovers herself to be a key part of the magical artifacts known as the "Elements of Harmony". The ponies share adventures and help out other residents of Ponyville, while working out the troublesome moments in their own friendships. The show has been critically praised for its humor and moral outlook. Despite the target demographic of young girls, Friendship Is Magic has also gained a large following of older viewers, mainly young and middle-aged men, who call themselves "bronies". Reasons for this unintended appreciation include Faust and her team's creative writing and characterization, the expressive Flash-based animation style, themes that older audiences can appreciate, and a reciprocal relationship between Hasbro, the creators, and the fans. Portions of the show have become part of the remix culture, and have formed the basis for a variety of Internet memes. A spin-off feature film series, My Little Pony: Equestria Girls, has been made and shown in limited theatrical screenings prior to television broadcast and home media release. A feature-length film directly based on the series itself has been announced for a theatrical release on October 6, 2017.D'Alessandro, Anthony (April 27, 2016). "'My Little Pony' Trots Up To October 2017; 'Cafe Society' Changes To Platform Release". Deadline. Origin Hasbro, Inc. has produced several incarnations and lines of toys and entertainment related to the My Little Pony franchise, often labeled by collectors as "generations".Tyrrel, Rebecca (2004-12-24).Pony tale. The Telegraph.Hix, Lisa (2012-06-28).My Little Pony Smackdown: Girls vs. Bronies. Collectors Weekly. The animated series My Little Pony Tales which premiered in 1992 was the toy line's most recent television series before Friendship Is Magic, featuring the pony designs of the first toy line.Hayes, Summer (2008-05-01).The My Little Pony G1 Collector's Inventory. Priced Nostalgia Press. ISBN 978-0-9786063-1-2.Erickson, Hal (2005-06-30). Television Cartoon Shows: An Illustrated Encyclopedia, 1949–2003, The Shows M-Z 2. McFarland & Company. pp. 575–576. ISBN 0-7864-2256-4. It was followed by various direct-to-video releases, which featured later designs up to the third incarnation of the franchise.Hayes, Summer (2007-06-15).The My Little Pony G3 Collector's Inventory. Priced Nostalgia Press. ISBN 978-0-9786063-5-0. Just as Michael Bay's film had helped to boost the new Transformers toy line, Hasbro wanted to retool the My Little Pony franchise and update it to better suit the current demographic and taste of young girls. According to Margaret Loesch, CEO of Hub Network, revisiting properties that had worked in the past was an important programming decision, influenced to an extent by the opinions of the network's programming executives, a number of whom were once fans of such shows.Anderson, Monika (2011-08-12).Never Too Old For "ThunderCats"?. The Wall Street Journal. Senior Vice President Linda Steiner also stated that they "intended to have the show appeal to a larger demographic", with the concept of "co-viewing" of parents with their children being a central theme of the Hub Network's programming.Griffiths, Daniel Nye (2011-09-27)Friendship is Massive – Ponies, Internet phenomena and crossover audiences. Daniel Nye Griffiths. Central themes that Hasbro sought for the show included friendships and working together, factors they determined from market research in how girls played with their toys. Animator and writer Lauren Faust approached Hasbro, seeking to develop her girls' toys property "Galaxy Girls" into an animated series. Faust, who had previously worked on Cartoon Network's The Powerpuff Girls and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, had been pitching original animation aimed at girls for years, but had always been rejected by studios and networks because cartoons for girls were considered unsuccessful.Lauren Faust (2010-12-24).My Little NON-Homophobic, NON-Racist, NON-Smart-Shaming Pony: A Rebuttal. Ms. When she pitched to Lisa Licht of Hasbro Studios, Licht showed Faust one of their recent My Little Pony animated works, Princess Promenade, "completely on the fly". Licht considered that Faust's style was well suited to that line, and asked her to consider "some ideas where to take a new version of the franchise". Faust was initially hired by Hasbro to create a pitch bible for the show, allowing her to get additional help with conceptualization. Faust said she was "extremely skeptical" about taking the job at first because she had always found shows based on girls' toys to be boring and unrelatable. My Little Pony was one of her favorite childhood toys, but she was disappointed that her imagination at the time was nothing like the animated shows, in which the characters, according to Faust, "just had endless tea parties, giggled over nothing and defeated villains by either sharing with them or crying". With the chance to work on My Little Pony, she hoped to prove that "cartoons for girls don't have to be a puddle of smooshy, cutesy-wootsy, goody-two-shoeness". To do this, she incorporated into the design of the characters and the show many elements that contradicted idealized stereotypes of girls, such as diverse personalities, the message that friends can be different and can get into arguments but still be friends, and the idea that girls should not be limited by what others say they can or cannot do. Elements of the characters' personalities and the show's settings were based on her own childhood imagination of the ponies' adventures, in part inspired by the animated shows that her brothers would watch while growing up, such as Transformers and G.I. Joe;Ohanesian, Liz (2012-05-21).Lauren Faust on Her Favorite Childhood Toy and Pitching Animated Shows for Girls. LA Weekly. she considered that she was making Friendship Is Magic "for me as an eight-year-old".Lauren Faust (2014-09-10). title= Inside Sony Pictures Animation - Director Lauren Faust. Sony Pictures Animation. 7:25 minutes in. Faust still aimed for the characters to be "relatable" characters, using stereotypical "icons of girliness" (such as the waif or the bookworm) in order to broaden the appeal of the characters for the young female audience.Wilson, Melody (2012-07-03).Why do These Grown Men Love "My Little Pony?". Slate. Faust stated that as she provided Hasbro with more of her ideas for the show, she was inspired by their positive response to the non-traditional elements. Faust had initially pitched the show to include "adventure stories" in a similar proportion to "relationship stories", but recognizing the younger target audience, as well as the difficulty of basing complex plots on the adventure elements, she trimmed back this content, focusing more on exchanges between the characters. The show still incorporates episodic creatures intended to be frightening to children, such as dragons and hydras, but it places more emphasis on the friendships among the characters, displayed with a comedic tone. By the time the show was approved, Faust had developed three full scripts for the series. Faust began to work out concept sketches, several of which appeared on her DeviantArt page, including ponies from the original series (Twilight, Applejack, Firefly, Surprise, Posey and Sparkler), which later provided the core for the main cast of the show.Faust, Lauren (2010-12-05).MLP News- TOY FAIR PICS!!!. deviantArt.Davis, Lauren (2013-12-02). Lauren Faust shares her childhood My Little Pony collection on Twitter. io9. Hasbro approved the show with Faust as Executive ProducerHasbro Chief Spins Toys to Hollywood Tales and asked her to complete the pitch bible. In order to do so, Faust brought in Martin Ansolabehere and Paul Rudish, who had worked on other animated shows with her. Faust credits Rudish for the inspiration of the pegasus ponies controlling the weather in Equestria, as well as the character of Nightmare Moon during this period. Faust also consulted Craig McCracken, her husband and also an animator and creator of The Powerpuff Girls and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. After seeing the initial version of the pitch bible, Hasbro requested more character designs from Faust's team; subsequently, Faust brought aboard Dave Dunnet and Lynne Naylor to further refine the background and character styles. On completion of the pitch bible, Hasbro and Faust began looking at studios for the animation. Studio B Productions (renamed to DHX Media on September 8, 2010, after its parent company, along with DHX's other subsidiariesDHX Media Rebrands Across Divisions (Press release). DHX Media. 2010-09-08.) had previously worked on Adobe Flash-based animations and on shows that featured a large number of animals, and Faust felt they would be a good selection. Studio B requested that Jayson Thiessen be the director, a choice Faust agreed with. She, Thiessen, and James Wootton led the completion of a two-minute short to pitch the final product to Hasbro, resulting in the company's sanctioning the full production. Faust estimates that from being initially asked to develop the show until this point took roughly one year. Production The show is developed at Hasbro Studios in Los Angeles, where most of the writing staff is located, and at DHX Media Vancouver in Vancouver, British Columbia, for the animation work. Faust's initial writing staff at Hasbro Studios included several writers who had worked with her on her previous shows and were approved by Hasbro. These included Amy Keating Rogers, Cindy Morrow, Meghan McCarthy, Chris Savino, Charlotte Fullerton, M.A. Larson, and Dave Polsky. The writing process began with Faust and Renzetti coming up with broad plots for each show. The two would then hold a brainstorming session with each episode's writer, allowing the writer to script out scenes and dialog. Faust and Renzetti then worked with the writer to finalize the scripts and assign some basic storyboard instructions. Hasbro was involved throughout this process and laid down some of the concepts to be incorporated into the show. Examples of Hasbro's influence include having Celestia be a princess rather than a queen, making one of the ponies focused on fashion, and portraying toy sets in relevant places within the story, such as Rarity's boutique. In some cases, Hasbro requested that the show include a setting, but allowed Faust and her team to create its visual style, and Hasbro then based the toy set on it; an example is the Ponyville schoolhouse. Faust also had to write to the E/I ("educational and informational") standards that Hasbro required of the show, making the crafting of some of the situations she would have normally done on other animated shows more difficult; for example, Faust cited having one character call another an "egghead" as "treading a very delicate line", and having one character cheat in a competition as "worrisome to some". Each episode also generally includes a moral or life lesson, but these were chosen to "cross a broad spectrum of personal experiences", and not just to suit children. Because intellectual property issues had caused Hasbro to lose some of the rights on the original pony names, the show includes a mix of original characters from the toy line and new characters developed for the show. Completed scripts were sent to Studio B for pre-production and animation using Adobe Flash. Thiessen's production team was also allowed to select key personnel subject to Hasbro's approval; one of those selected was art director Ridd Sorensen. The Studio B team would storyboard the provided scripts, incorporating any direction and sometimes managing to create scenes that the writers had believed impossible to show in animation. The animators would then prepare the key character poses, layout, background art, and other main elements, and send these versions back to the production team in Los Angeles for review by Hasbro and suggestions from the writers. Thiessen credited much of the technical expertise in the show to Wooton, who created Flash programs to optimize the placement and posing of the pony characters and other elements, simplifying and economizing on the amount of work needed from the other animators. For example, the ponies' manes and tails are generally fixed shapes, animated by bending and stretching them in curves in three dimensions and giving them a sense of movement without the high cost of individual animated hairs. The storyboard artists and animators also need to fill in background characters for otherwise scripted scenes as to populate the world. According to writer Meghan McCarthy, many of the small nods to the fandom, pop culture references, or other easter eggs would be added at this point by the studio.Sims, Chris (2012-07-15)."We Love The Bronies": The Cast And Writer Of "My Little Pony" On MLP And Its Fans. Comics Alliance. Once the pre-production work was approved and completed, the episode would then be animated. Though Studio B performed the initial animation work, the final steps were passed to Top Draw Animation in the Philippines, an animation studio that Studio B had worked with in the later part of season one and beyond.The Year That Was – 2010. Top Draw Animation.The Year That Was – 2011. Top Draw Animation. The voice casting and production is handled by Voicebox Productions,Voicebox Productions. Voicebox Productions. with Terry Klassen as the series' voice director. Faust, Thiessen, and others participated in selecting voice actors, and Hasbro gave final approval. The voice work is performed prior to the animation, with the animators in the room to help provide direction; according to Libman, this allows herself and the other actors to play the character without certain limitations. Libman noted that for recording her lines as the hyperactive Pinkie Pie, "I learned that I can go as over the top as I want and they animators rarely pull me back."Keeble, Ellen (2012-05-21). Voicing pony magic. Calgary Sun. The series' background music is composed by William Kevin Anderson, and Daniel Ingram composes the songs,"Tekaramity" (2011-06-29).Interview: Will Anderson (Friendship Is Magic score composer). Equestria Daily. which are only included if they would make sense in the episode's script. The production team identifies specific parts of the episode where they want music cues, allowing Anderson to create appropriate music for each. Ingram works alongside Anderson's compositions to create vocal songs that mesh with the background music while filling out the show's fantasy setting. The composition of the music and songs far proceeds the broadcast of the episode; for example, songs for the show's third season that began airing in November 2012 were composed in 2011. Ingram considered that songs from previous shows of My Little Pony were "a little bit dated" and decided to bring more interesting work to the Friendship Is Magic series.Burlingame, Russ (2013-03-01). My Little Pony's Emmy-Winning Daniel Ingram on Scoring for Kids of All Ages. Comicbook.com. Such changes include making songs with more emotional depth than typical for children's animation, and tending to write songs that can be enjoyed musically outside of the context of the episode. Ingram's songs have "became bigger and more epic, more Broadway and more cinematic over time" with Hasbro blessing the effort to try "something groundbreaking for daytime television", according to Ingram.Connelly, Sherilyn (2012-11-09).Interview: Daniel Ingram, Songwriter for My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. SF Weekly. Lyrics and overall musical themes may be suggested by the writers; two examples include songs written by Amy Keating Rogers, who is a self-professed Stephen Sondheim fan.Barnett, Annie (2012-07-14)."My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" Comic-Con panel: Twilightlicious!. Entertainment Weekly. The song "The Art of the Dress" in the first season episode "Suited for Success" is inspired by "Putting it Together" from the musical Sunday in the Park with George, while the season one finale's song, "At The Gala", is based on Sondheim's Into the Woods.Griffiths, Daniel Nye (2011-08-15).Colt Success. Wired UK.Weinman, Jaime (2011-09-07).Ponies Do Sondheim. Maclean's. A large musical number in the episode "The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000" paid homage to the song "Ya Got Trouble" from Meredith Willson's musical, The Music Man. Before the show was approved, Hasbro and Faust had planned for episodes to be 11 minutes long, to which Faust conformed in her first full-length script, "The Ticket Master", which was part of the pitch bible. However, Faust preferred more traditional 22-minute episodes, and Hasbro eventually agreed to this. The initial production stages were very tight, requiring a schedule twice as fast as Faust had previously experienced, and frequent remote communication between the Los Angeles writing offices and the animation studio in Vancouver. At times, the two teams would hold "writer's summits" to propose new ideas for characters and situations, at which the animation team would provide suggestions on visuals, body language, and characterization. Faust estimates that the time to complete one episode was one year; at one point, the team was simultaneously working on various stages of all 26 episodes of the first season, and when the second season was approved, that number rose temporarily to 32. Episodes then aired about a month after completion. Thiessen explained that they had pushed to start work on the second season as soon as the first was completed, to prevent staff turnover. After the airing of the first season's finale, Faust announced that she had left the show, and would be credited in the future as Consulting Producer. Her involvement in the second season consists mainly of story conception and scripts, and the involvement ceased after the second season. Despite leaving, she still has high hopes for the staff members, stating that "the gaps I have left are being filled by the same amazing artists, writers, and directors who brought you Season 1. I'm certain the show will be as entertaining as ever".Faust, Lauren (2011-05-08). THANK YOU!!!. deviantArt. In an interview with New York Magazine, Faust stated her reasons for leaving were a combination of a hectic production schedules and a lack of creative control she had with the series.Miller, Lisa (2014-11-06). How My Little Pony Became a Cult for Grown Men and Preteen Girls Alike. New York Magazine. According to her husband McCracken, Faust's departure was due to the fact that as a toy company-driven show, "there were things she wanted to do with that series that she just wasn't able to do", and that there is "still some frustration with" not being able to bring some of her ideas to screen. Episodes Main article: List of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic episodes In total, 132 episodes have been produced and broadcast. Series overview Distribution United States My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic is one of several animated shows used to premiere The Hub, a retooling of the Discovery Kids channel of Discovery Communications in United States markets. The block of programming is a joint development of Hasbro and Discovery, designed to compete with similar family-friendly programming blocks on other networks such as the Disney Channel and Nickelodeon.Stelter, Brian (2010-10-10). "A Children's Channel Retools". The New York Times. The first episode of Friendship Is Magic premiered on the first Hub broadcast, on October 10, 2010. In March 2011, the show was renewed for a second season to air in 2011–2012.Andreeva, Nellie (2011-03-24). "The Hub Orders 9 New Series, Renews 10 Shows, Acquires '5th Grader'". Deadline.com."The Hub Television Network Unveils Robust 2011–12 Program Schedule, Building on Success as Destination for Kids and Their Families" (Press release). Discovery Communications. 2011-03-24. The season two premiere on September 17, 2011,Watercutter, Angela (2011-09-12). "Exclusive Clip: My Little Pony Back for Season Two". Wired. had 339,000 viewers,"Saturday, September 17, 2011 Broadcast & Cable Final Ratings". The Voice of TV. 2011-09-21. Archived from the original on September 30, 2011. and Hasbro reported that the second season finale, "A Canterlot Wedding", produced the best ratings of the history of the network in its core and other demographics, with an estimated 1,032,400 viewers.Kern, Mark J. "Hub TV Network Scores Record High Audience With Outstanding Performance of Special Royal Wedding of the Year on 'My Little Pony Friendship is Magic'" (Press release). Hasbro. The series is rated TV-Y (designed for ages 2 and up) and targeted at girls 4–7 years old."My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic". hasbrostudios.com. The first season was produced and broadcast to "E/I" ("educational and informational") standards, but Hasbro allowed the standard to be dropped in the second season. References Category:Television series Category:2010 television series debuts Category:2010s television series Category:Television series by DHX Media Category:Films, TV Shows And Wildlife Wiki